“…whenever anyone came to inspect it before purchase, the caretaker used to praise the house in the words that Nuth had suggested. “If it wasn’t for the drains,” she would say, “it’s the finest house in London,” and when they pounced on this remark and asked questions about the drains, she would answer them that the drains also were good, but not so good as the house.”

—Lord Dunsany, How Nuth Would Have Practiced His Art Upon the Noles

The upper part of the range of the d20 roll used to resolve #downtimes in the previous article determines whether the downtime was particularly successful or unsuccessful.

The lower part, indicating an average result, provides space for other complications, and consists of a seperate 1-8 table written for each available lodging, such as the default lodging of the campaign:

A Room at the Inn

An unpretentious room at a local inn, with a small fire in the grate. Recovery Rate: 1d6 CON/DT Ameneties: None. [Some kind of bonus to hiring retainers might be appropriate if we envision the inn as a clearing house for would-be adventurers.]

1-5: Pay Your Tab – 100cn upkeep (+50 per retainer) 6: Petty Theft – the cheapest gem, jewellery or other small treasure is taken. 7: Disturbed Sleep – Rowdy patrons reduce base recovery rate to 0 this DT. 8: Nemesis – If an enemy is looking to harm the PC, they gain access to the Inn.

On the one hand, writing #downtimes has been one of the most rewarding parts of running games with #RedHack. On the other, it’s also the most time-consuming and demanding, equivalent to prep for the game itself.

So as well as providing for a range of downtime activities and results, I’m looking for ways to reduce bookkeeping.

In a addition to resolving downtime actions, I like the idea of Lodgings: Allowing PCs to trade upkeep costs for ameneties and the security of their possessions and persons, but there’s a risk of ending up with many steps of bookkeeping for each character – deducting upkeep, checking for illness, robbery, poor maintenance of equipment and so on, applying any perks, before even getting into downtimes and having to design progress clocks and roll for complications.

How much of this can we concentrate into one roll?

I'm looking at rules for #downtimes, in particular the creation of minor magical items. I'm happy with magic items being born and not made, but for consumables such as potions and scrolls I want PCs to be able to make them during downtime, but need to limit supply.

In the 1E DMG Gary requires monster parts for potions, scrolls and spell research. This is clearly a way to drive players back into the dungeon and keep supply linked to risk.